The invention set forth in this specification pertains to new and improved infusers. More specifically it is directed to infusers which are primarily intended for use in making the beverage commonly referred to as coffee.
In an infuser an infusing liquid such as water is placed in contact with a material from which an infusion is to be prepared until such time as a solution is formed of one or more components of the material in the infusing liquid. Such a solution is referred to as an infusion. Such a resulting solution or infusion is normally separated from the material remaining after the infusion is formed in an infuser. Such infusers are most commonly employed in making beverages from various vegetable substances but on occasion they are also employed in extracting various compounds from quite a variety of different materials.
A number of different types of apparatus have been proposed and utilized as infusers in the preparation of the beverage coffee. Most commonly such infusers are constructed so that water flows downwardly in a container through a bed of ground and roasted coffee. However, a number of different infusers have been designed in which the water used in preparing the beverage coffee flows upwardly through a bed of the ground and roasted coffee. It is considered that an understanding of the reasons why such infusers employing upward flow are considered desirable in some applications is unnecessary to an understanding of the present invention.
Such prior infusers designed for the purpose of making the beverage coffee employing upward flow have normally been constructed so as to utilize a bottom inlet into a container having an outlet adjacent to the top of the container and so as to utilize a filter or filter type element located within the container adjacent to the outlet. Such filters or filter type elements have been used in such prior upward flow coffee makers to merely retain ground and roasted coffee beans so that they do not "flow" with the beverage produced into the outlet of the infuser employed.
As a consequence of this type of structure the ground and roasted coffee in such an apparatus is normally somewhat loose or free to move within the container employed. As a consequence of this there is danger of the liquid moving through the container tending to channelize to a degree so that not all particles of the ground and roasted coffee are equally contacted by the water. Further, frequently there is a tendency for such particles of ground and roasted coffee to be spaced from one another so that the bed of such particles does not create an adequate "back pressure" to the flow of liquid to slow up such flow in order to insure a desired degree of contact between the particles of the ground and roasted coffee and the water employed.